Post #4507045
2026-08-09 01:37 UTC
AWS and similar are very expensive compared to a simple VPS. However, AWS offer things that is hard to do on a VPS, not impossible of course but just hard.
Like automatic scaling, your site suddently gets on the frontpage of slashdot/hn/reddit/etc and get 1000x the normal traffic? Your VPS will probaly choke and render error pages for most of the traffic. On a correctly configured AWS scaling deployment, you won’t even notice it. And not only for your webserver, you can do the same for data
And other features like multiregional and easier CDN (also in multiregion) integration.
There are of course problems with AWS also, sometimes you don’t want your site to scale uncontrollably. If you get DDoSed without mitigatiln, for example, you could end up with a huge bill for nothing.
So, as with almost everything in life. It depends what your goal is and how much you want to spend.
Replies (1)
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@dan@upvote.au 2026-08-09 02:52
I agree about the automated scaling, but with VPS hosting you can usually have several hot spares to handle traffic spikes, and still spend less than something like AWS. Most good VPS hosts will let you create a private network between your VPSes. 1000x spikes aren’t very common. CDNs are pretty easy in general, especially if they support origin pull. I don’t like keeping all my eggs in one basket, so I use a few different providers.